Thursday, August 25, 2016

Will Iraq’s Mosul Go Down Like Fallujah?

For the first two years of the war against the Islamic State
the script for liberating Iraq’s major cities seemed set until Fallujah was
freed. Tikrit and Ramadi took months to re-take and were marked by fits and
spurts by the security forces. The defense in depth that the insurgents built
meant slow going for the Iraqi forces, while IS units re-infiltrated into the
rear for harassing attacks. That all changed with Fallujah however that fell in
just weeks. The real problem turned out to be a humanitarian one. Could the
battle for Mosul go down the same way?

Tikrit and Ramadi seemed to set a pattern for how the
Islamic State would defend major urban areas. IS laid down multiple IED fields
with covering fire from snipers on the perimeter. IS would also re-infiltrate
into the towns surrounding the cities delaying the final assault. On the inside of the cities there were
booby-trapped houses and tunnel systems so that IS fighters could maneuver without
being exposed to Coalition airstrikes or Iraqi artillery and mortar fire. It
also allowed the militants to come up behind the Iraqi forces in surprise
attacks. Finally, multiple suicide bombers and car bombs would be launched to
break up Iraqi units. The Islamic State didn’t have the numbers to hold these
areas, but they were able to drag out the fighting for months and cause
thousands of casualties. Ramadi for example, took four
months to be freed. Half of that was spent just getting into the city and
then the other half to clear it. What allowed the Islamic State to build up
such defense in depth was the fact that Tikrit and Ramadi had basically been
emptied of their populace in the run up to the operations. With no civilians,
IS was free to plant bombs and maneuver anywhere it wanted. That was not true
of Fallujah.

The battle of Fallujah went down surprisingly quickly given
the previous battles. The city was liberated in just five
weeks. At first, it seemed like the Iraqi forces were going to have the
same hard time as they did in Tikrit and Ramadi with all the IEDs and snipers,
but when they were able to penetrate into the interior of the city the
insurgents’ defenses quickly fell. The difference was that Fallujah was a major
command center for the Islamic State. It not only maintained facilities there,
but housed its families and thousands of other civilians. Because of that IS
was only able to set up perimeter defenses, and little on the inside. Instead,
what turned out to be the major problem in Fallujah was the humanitarian crisis
that developed as approximately 80,000
families fled the militants. The government and humanitarian organizations
were not prepared for such an exodus lacking facilities, supplies and money.
After the battle was over their plight
did not improve much either due to those same issues.

Mosul could go down in much the same fashion as Fallujah.
Like the latter, IS uses Mosul as one of its two main hubs in Iraq and Syria.
There are still over a million people living in the city as well. Unless they
move their operations out and depopulate it, the insurgents will not be able to
create the intricate defenses that they did in Tikrit and Ramadi. Instead,
there will be a tough exterior and weak inside again like Fallujah. Just like
that city, the real dilemma will be dealing with all the people that flee,
because the government and NGOs are still not prepared for the mass
displacement due to their lack of money. The political disputes between all the
factions that want to be involved in the operation that are emerging now, will
also play a role afterward.

The battle for Mosul is still months away. At the earliest
the city could be attacked by the end of the year, but early 2017 is more
likely. Liberating it could take less time than it took to get there. The
Islamic State made a huge overreach when it seized Mosul in the first place in
the summer of 2014. Once the Iraqi government regrouped and the U.S. led
Coalition entered the fray IS was going to lose all the territory it seized in
Iraq. The group is aware of that inevitability making announcements
that it might lose its state, but that it will endure. The real dilemma now is
what will happen in the aftermath. Over one million people are likely to be
displaced during the battle and Baghdad lacks the resources to take care of
them. Just as important the government doesn't have the money to rebuild Mosul
either. Finally, there will be political disputes over the administration of
Mosul and Ninewa in general, and likely revenge attacks as well. Those issues
will all likely be exploited by IS as it tries to regroup after its losses and
re-infiltrate back into the city that has been its main base in Iraq for years.
Those are the factors that will have a lasting impact past the freeing of the
city itself.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com